Scholarship Against Desire

Abstract

How do ego-driven fears and ambitions influence intellectual life in our law schools? How do law review placements, promotion applications, and faculty workshops skew the questions we law professors ask and the conclusions we reach? In my own case, they led me to frame my last project before tenure — which at its heart is about intimate relationships — through a tax policy analysis. Instead of writing about “sex against desire” I wrote about “preglimony.” I stand behind the result, but the exercise also left me feeling incomplete. This article reflects on the price of strategically motivated scholarship and articulates a vision for what a more authentic ethos may bring to students, to the profession, and to the world we help shape.

Keywords: legal education, scholarship, creativity, sex, feminism, diversity, tax, reproductive rights, mindfulness